Post navigation

Just How Ill is Donald Trump? (Hint: Very)

The question that continues to concern nearly every civilized person in the world is the sanity of the president of the United States. It is a legitimate concern, one a team of esteemed psychiatrists thought so dire that they wrote a book about it: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.

One of the authors of that book is Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee, who yesterday wrote a piece in The Guardian that contained the following:

“It is Trump in the office of the presidency that poses a danger. Why? Past violence is the best predictor of future violence, and he has shown: verbal aggressiveness, boasting about sexual assaults, inciting violence in others, an attraction to violence and powerful weapons and the continual taunting of a hostile nation with nuclear power. Specific traits that are highly associated with violence include: impulsivity, recklessness, paranoia, a loose grip on reality with a poor understanding of consequences, rage reactions, a lack of empathy, belligerence towards others and a constant need to demonstrate power.

“There is another pattern by which he is dangerous. His cognitive function, or his ability to process knowledge and thoughts, has begun to be widely questioned. Many have noted a distinct decline in his outward ability to form complete sentences, to stay with a thought, to use complex words and not to make loose associations. This is dangerous because of the critical importance of decision-making capacity in the office that he holds. Cognitive decline can result from any number of causes – psychiatric, neurological, medical, or medication-induced – and therefore needs to be investigated. Likewise, we do not know whether psychiatric symptoms are due to a mental disorder, medication, or a physical condition, which only a thorough examination can reveal.”

Trump says he is a “stable genius,” an opinion shared by nobody else who has a degree of sanity. He says his nuclear button is bigger than that of the premier of North Korea, another shaky leader who is being made to look much more “stable” by comparison to his American counterpart.

Lee strongly recommends a first-hand diagnosis of Trump, something almost nobody expects as even a possibility. It could, however, be the beginning of saving the world from a madman.